As Darfur talks break for Muslim celebration, little progess reported
Jan 8, 2005 (ABUJA) — African Union mediators reported slow progress as monthlong peace talks between the Sudanese government and rebels from the country’s Darfur region were suspended Sunday in Nigeria in honor of a Muslim celebration this week.
Since talks resumed in Abuja on Nov 29, 2005 delegations representing the Sudanese government and two Darfur rebel movements have remained irreconcilable on how to share power and end the conflict that has claimed more than 180,000 lives since 2003, Sam Ibok, deputy head of the African Union mediating team, said.
“There is extremely slow progress. But that was to be expected because for the first time we were dealing with substantive issues,” he said.
The peace talks have been scheduled to resume on Jan. 15 after this week’s celebration of Eid el-Kabir, Ibok said.
After more than a year of preliminary talks by the Sudan government and the rebel Sudan Liberation Army and its Justice and Equality Movement ally, mediators had hoped the latest round of talks was the opportunity to reach a deal to end the conflict described by the United Nations as the cause of the world’s gravest humanitarian disaster.
More than two million people have been forced from their homes in Darfur apart from the dead.
At the talks the Darfur rebels have asked for the position of vice president and a redrawing of Sudan’s internal borders to give Darfur more land, demands rejected by the Sudanese government. Ibok said mediators were forced to skip discussions on power-sharing when the parties refused to compromise after two weeks of intense negotiations.
“They were repeating themselves, so we decided to move to another item on the agenda,” he said.
Ahmed Hussein, a spokesman for the two rebel movements, said the highest political office proposed by Khartoum for Darfur was that of special adviser to President Omar el-Bashir which he said was unacceptable.
Head of the Sudanese government delegation Majzoub al Khalifa accused the rebel negotiators of not being serious with the talks and making frequent trips abroad at the expense of negotiations.
“We have already conceded enough and need to ask them why they are refusing to move ahead,” Khalifa said.
More than a year of off-and-on peace negotiations have failed to achieve any lasting settlement for the conflict in Darfur.
As in previous negotiating rounds, continued military hostilities in Darfur in breach of agreements signed by both sides, have put a dampener on the current talks. Tensions between Sudan and Chad on their Darfur borders are an additional cause of concern, mediators said.
Decades of low-level tribal clashes over land and water in the western Darfur region erupted into large-scale violence in early 2003 when ethnic African tribes took up arms, accusing the Arab-dominated central government of neglect.
The central government is accused of responding by unleashing Arab tribal militias known as Janjaweed to murder and rape civilians and lay waste to villages. The central government denies backing the Janjaweed.
(AP/ST)